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Tadious Manyepo in LILONGWE, Malawi

DONATA Katai has always been Zimbabwe’s biggest prospect.

And she lived up to the billing when winning the country’s first gold medal in the on-going African Union Sports Council Region 5 Games yesterday.

The 18-year-old female swimmer was home first in 1:04:94 as she outclassed the whole field in an exciting women’s 20 and Under 100m backstroke final. She has always dominated this event and yesterday wasn’t any different as Zimbabwe bagged its first gold medal at these Games in scintillating fashion.

And she was back again in the late afternoon winning another gold in the 200m backstroke. By late yesterday afternoon, Zimbabwe had won 28 medals, including 20 bronze, six silver and two gold, both from the golden girl Katai.

She was ecstatic after bagging the gold medal yesterday.

“It’s an honour to represent my country, I am very glad to win the gold medal for my country,” Katai said.

“Before the race, I was very nervous obviously due to expectations and then I just had to carry my mind during the race and I felt relieved when I was done. “I just hope that these wins can motivate the rest of the athletes in Team Zimbabwe to want to do more”.  Katai, who competed at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games last year, said it doesn’t matter she has contested at the highest level as she is willing to represent the country at any stage.

“What’s important for me is to represent my country. I take every opportunity which avails itself for me to represent the country.

“There is a lot of competition in this region and I am always willing to be part of the events. I have some World Championships coming up in a couple of weeks and I am sure this meet will help me perfect my act.”

Swimming also brought the country two more silver medals with Cory Werret coming second in the 100m boys’ breaststroke race.

Benjamin Rorke, Tanatsirwa Chitsirura, Mikayla Makwabarara and Werret also won silver in the Mixed 4x100m freestyle relay.

Ryan Franceys hit home third in the 200m freestyle with Taya Smith also winning bronze in the 50m breaststroke race. Jayden De Swart and Olvia Accorsi also won bronze medals in the 100m breaststroke and backstroke respectively.

With the swimmers giving a good account of themselves, the girls volleyball Under-20 side beat Malawi 3-1 to ensure their passage into the quarter-finals.

The Patricia River-coached girls were good value for their win recovering from a first set disappointment to clinch a come-from-behind victory.

Pooled in Group A together with Malawi and Botswana, Zimbabwe started brightly on Sunday, beating the latter 3-2 in a tight contest.

They have now emerged the best from their group and they were still awaiting to see if they will be the best-placed group toppers to get a bye.

Group B consists of South Africa, Lesotho, Zambia and Mozambique and the region decided to give the girls more game-time by incorporating quarter-finals.

The best-placed group winners will get a bye in the quarter-finals. Zimbabwe were still to see if they would get a bye with Group B proceedings scheduled to close late in the night yesterday. River was impressed with the Hellen Matembedza-captained girls .

“I am very happy that my team showed a lot of character in coming from behind to clinch an important victory against the host nation, Malawi. “I would like to salute their spirit and I pray they will summon the same energy going forward,” she said.

Meanwhile, the national netball Under-20 side — the Young Gems — succumbed to their first defeat at these Games after losing 42-37 to Malawi in a tense encounter at the Griffins Complex. The Simbarashe Mlambo-coached girls came into this match at the back of a 100 percent record after winning against Zambia and Botswana.

They looked like taking the initiative in the opening quarter and at one point even led the hosts by four points.

But, they somehow made some marginal errors in mid-court towards the end to eventually lose the game. They will look to bounce back when they face Namibia today before facing South Africa in their last game tomorrow.

The boys ’basketball team also found the going tough, losing against Angola to effectively throw away their Fiba Afrobasket qualification, having already lost their opener against Mozambique.